I recognize that I'm human, and the older I get, the more I realize how fallible I am, how fallible we all are.
I want to take the time to think through how I feel and why I feel. I don't want to feign expertise on matters I know nothing about for the purpose of offering someone else my immediate reaction for their consumption.
Everyone else thinks I'm a nonfiction writer. I think it's because my nonfiction is easier to find. But I write both in equal measure. I love writing fiction because I can totally lose myself, and I get to make up the rules of the world that I'm writing.
We all have our vanities. The retouching magazines like 'Vogue' do is the professional version of the retouching we do when we, for example, apply Instagram filters to the pictures we take and share on our social networks.
I read too many romance novels during my formative years. I have a penchant for romantic comedies. I understand why 'Romeo and Juliet' came to such a pass.
A lot of ink is given over to mythologizing female friendships as curious, fragile relationships that are always intensely fraught. Stop reading writing that encourages this mythology.
I believe in the freedom of expression, unequivocally - though, as I have written before, I wish more people would understand that freedom of expression is not freedom from consequence.
Long walks on the beach are the supposed holy grail of a romantic evening. The beach becomes a kind of utopia - the place where all our dreams come true.
It's so hard to write about countries like Haiti because there's truths behind the misperceptions people have. But there's so much more. There are multiple truths.
In Haiti, beach bodies are simply bodies, and beach reads are simply books, because the beach is all around you.
It sometimes feels like the workplace is immune from social upheaval. We go to work and do the best we can, and at the end of the day, we return to our lives. We don't abandon who we are, however, when we begin and end our workday. Who we are shapes how we are perceived in the workplace and, in turn, how we perform in the workplace.
Public intellectuals are often put in the position of having their words, no matter how off-the-cuff, treated as doctrine.
For celebrities, privacy is utterly nonexistent. You are asked intrusive questions about your personal life. You can be photographed at any moment.
Love your friends' kids, even if you don't want or like children. Just do it.
We have to believe that we can hold different points of view without labeling each other bad feminists.
We have cellphones and smartphones and iDevices and laptops and the ability to be perpetually connected. We never have to miss anything, significant or insignificant.
I think Lena Dunham is a very bright and very interesting writer, and what she's accomplished at such a young age absolutely impresses me.
Placing Margaret Sanger on the $20 bill will remind us of what she has done for women and our reproductive health and how the fight for reproductive freedom is an ongoing one.
Internet outrage can seem mindless, but it rarely is. To make that assumption is dismissive. There's something beneath the outrage - an unwillingness to be silent in the face of ignorance, hatred or injustice. Outrage may not always be productive, but it is far better than silence.
Feminism is just an idea. It's a philosophy. It's about the equality of women in all realms. It's not about man-hating. It's not about being humorless. We have to let go of these misconceptions that have plagued feminism for 40, 50 years.
